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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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Well the We Silk is coming out now. Which means that we are due for upgrading our robes. @Boney Is it safe to assume that one or more colleges could help us make better new robes for ourself then we could make by ourself?
 
yeah, let just ask for gear upgrade, not like there anything else we want
 
DeadmanwalkingXI said:
That's probably only one or two colleges per piece of gear, and there's a limit on how many of those we even want. It should definitely be part of the list, though, I think.
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There's limitations to how many pieces of magical gear we can carry ('slot'), we're already fairly near to best-in-slot on a fair few of them. So while there might be some value from a couple of pieces in a broader plan, I don't think eight new Enchanted items is the way to go.
 
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Is it wierd that I think the most impactfull thing this chapter was to see Dhar burn?

[ ]: I want a way to create Quash

[ ]: Every college must institute a black cat petter, whose job it is to pet black cats. The cats opinion is irrelevant.

[ ]: never enough BÓÓK

Edit: also just realized that Mathilde talked to what is basically a millenia old witch hunter that might as well read minds. Some of Seilphs lines are suspiciously close to Mathildes own.
 
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Airship seems like the perfect layup here. We could have the Gryocopter land on the darn thing as well somehow.

The Spirit of Grungni is cool as hell and we are slowly getting closer to Dwarfs tipping their toes back into airships. If it lines up right we could have another Wonder of the World on ours hands.
 
Like I need to stress this, topping on gear can be done pretty easily with the normal favor system. Not many chances for a single BIG project!
 
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Boney said:
But to senses that were forged millennia ago by hunting Pleasure Cults founded by Morathi herself, the petty necromancers that still remain may as well be trying to hide a bonfire on a moonless night. You find Lords Seilph and Sarumar in a shallow cave that still glows dully with the ugly energies of whatever tainted beast dug it out, and has lingering in the air the inescapable scent of rot emanating from magical accoutrements that were once parts of living beings and were not entirely cleaned of the scraps of that former existence.

Lord Seilph is a man constantly in motion, the movements of what once might have been frantic energy tamed and honed over millennia into something that almost seems natural and peaceful until you catch him in a rare moment of stillness and see the sadness that comes over his face, spurring him into action once more. Lord Sarumar, in contrast, has the stillness of a predator unwilling to waste energy until the proper time comes, and has such an air of restrained violence to her that it takes some concentration to see past it to the more than mere cunning behind her eyes. The necromancer that they are picking over the belongings of lies on the floor with a narrow hole burned straight through their head, and it was burned with such efficiency that it would take careful scrutiny to spot any traces of Hysh remaining, were it not instantly apparent from the way the Dhar keeps a wary distance from the corpse.
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They're both insanely good at what they do.

Boney said:
"It is a fascinating artifice," Seilph says to you from above an ancient but incomplete skeleton atop a crude wooden workbench. "I can see the fingerprints of the Druchii in its bones, if you'll excuse the phrasing, but there are layers of genius alien to Elven thought atop that. It takes true mastery to create something that can be so debased by clumsy hands and still work at all, let alone work with such terrible efficiency."

"The soul-workings seem to be largely untouched," Sarumar says, "but the workings of flesh and bone must have been made entirely from scratch, or adapted from the human traditions of the Vitae basin." She is not standing over the object of study as Seilph is, but her position leaning against a wall is one that gives her a clear view of it.
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They're able to pick apart Necromancy really well.

Boney said:
"In properly trained hands, the potential power would be far in excess of what is possible through other means," Seilph says, his eyes on you. "An option in extremis, perhaps?"

"All evidence suggests that no matter how noble one's original intentions, the corruptive influence of Dhar will create a villain." Even though you cannot reveal where you know this for sure from, it's safe to repeat it as it is also the official policy of the Colleges on the matter.
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Mathilde has an understanding of Vanhel beyond most people.

Boney said:
"Eventually, to be sure, but that did not revive the enemies that Vanhel defeated, did it?" His eyes are searching, though you don't know for what. "Everyone thinks first of sacrificing life and health, and the poets do like to go on about sacrificing the skills and temperament of peacetime upon the altar of war. But there are other sacrifices one can make for victory."

"Seilph," Sarumar says warningly, but it's not the strict tone of an overseer, but something gentler and wearier.

"It could be that a sacrifice that so neatly and directly extracts a cost from sanity might actually be preferable to the murkier, more ephemeral abrasions of honour and morality, which seem more palatable to the unwise but in the end are just as doomed. It could be-"

"Please don't," Sarumar tries to interrupt.

"-that the humans have crafted their very own Widowmaker."

"Gods, you said it. At least don't repeat it to Yngra."
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Man Seilph is a blast and the type to start flame wars.

Boney said:
You try to weigh how much you can reveal as you look over the bones, idly noting where the past repairs are working at cross-purposes that could have been avoided with a better choice of materials. "While Vanhel was the first of his kind in the Empire, there were none of significance that followed in his footsteps. While the argument could be made that Vladimir von Carstein was not the worst of the claimants of Ghal Maraz during the Time of Three Emperors, he certainly was no martyr. And Konrad was a lunatic and Mannfred a strong contender for the worst being to ever exist." What you don't say is that the eventual and tragic failure of Vanhel might be why Vlad made no attempt to make others of his ilk, instead creating the entirely Vampiric 'aristocracy of the night' to rule Sylvania through.
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Vlad saw that even the best of men got warped by Dhar and Necromancy and took it to heart

Boney said:
"We only ever had one, too," Seilph said, though without the intensity he had a moment ago. "I wonder how different our history would have been if we knew Aenarion's fate, whether he truly surrendered Heavenblight of his own will or whether he succumbed and it made its own way back to await a new victim. I sometimes think that if we had either answer, it would have been drawn again by now, and it is only the unknown that has kept it untouched as long as it has been." He looks at you with curiosity. "How well known is Vanhel's arc and eventual fate?"

You sigh. "Copies of his diaries do circulate, but very often the events of his life are excised in favour of retaining just the spells and rituals, and even those are often interwoven with traps to sabotage treacherous apprentices or spite successors."

He smiles. "Fascinating how the self-sabotaging nature of evil arises even when the Four are not involved, isn't it?"

"Relieving, certainly. I have not enjoyed encountering exceptions to that rule."
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Evil wrecking itself is the main reason the world hasn't been taken over or destroyed.

Boney said:
His curiosity apparently sated, Seilph snaps his fingers and rainbow fire consumes the skeleton, and then he turns his attention to the corpse of the Necromancer and that ignites too. The Dhar seems to unravel in the flames of what must be Qhaysh, torn into components too unstable to last for more than an instant before melting back into Dhar, but that instant is long enough to feed the flames that unravel even more Dhar. Though your Magesight can only catch a glimpse of the magics at work behind the blinding radiance of their effect on the world, it's a deeply moving sight, seeing your fundamental objection to Dhar - that of beauty turned to corruption - being reversed, if only for a few fleeting moments.
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This really shows how absurd Mathilde's wind sight is, her dislike of Dhar and the impressive nature of Qhaysh. For all that Mathile thinks that Wind Ascension could equal Qhaysh she would love to have such an ability to purify Dhar. Sure she can break it apart but that's different from purification.

Boney said:
Though your rank and reputation is sufficient to gain you a meeting with the heads of the Colleges, aligning the schedules of eight Magister Patriarchs and Matriarchs is no small task, nor is arranging for a meeting place secure enough to host them all. But luckily this is something Dragomas manages on a regular basis and there's no reason you can't ride on his thoroughly metaphorical coattails by simply extending one of these meetings a little longer and having you come in once their regular business is concluded.

There are dramatic demonstrations you could have made, various forms of pomp and frippery you could have gilded this occasion with, but under the circumstances you believe that your achievement speaks for itself. So you simply place in front of each of them a wooden box marked with the Rune of their Wind - very well-made boxes with very well-carved Runes, admittedly, courtesy of Clan Ironspike. "Magisters Patriarch and Matriarch of the Colleges of Magic," you say as you distribute them, "it is my particular honour to present you today with something entirely known and familiar to you all."

A Wizard is just not the sort of being that you can just leave a mysterious box in front of and have it remained unopened for more than a few seconds, and when you deliberately prod their curiosity like that, it only takes a few seconds for all of the boxes to creak open, and the air fills with a gratifyingly awed silence. For a Wizard there's no mistaking an Orb of Sorcery aligned with one's Wind when held in your hand, as you can feel the world around you become more conducive to your soul.
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She's full on walking into this meeting, smug with a box and showing them Orbs of Sorcery.

Boney said:
"I'd hope this wouldn't be from some sort of unasked-for penetration testing," Elspeth says cautiously.

"I'd know if one of mine had gone missing," Mira says.

"A gift from the Eonir?" Reicthard posits, and all eyes turn to you for an explanation.
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Reasonable reactions all around. Elspeth going did you sneak into all the colleges was showing lots of respect. The gift from the Eonir guess was pretty understandable.

Boney said:
"I have been studying the blood of Apparitions, that I have dubbed 'Aethyric Vitae', which has the mildly useful property of decaying into equal amounts of the eight Winds," you begin explaining to your now entirely focused audience. "In doing so I discovered that the Winds have differing properties in the moments immediately after their creation. With care and a specially-designed apparatus, I found that one of these differing properties is an ability to adhere to a strand of solidified Wind that makes up a Power Stone, expanding the stone and lengthening the strand. The effects begin to reverse themselves if cut off prematurely, but if allowed to reach the threshold that is the size of the Orbs of Sorcery we are familiar with, then the change becomes permanent and it stops being able to grow in this manner."

"That answers several questions," Paranoth murmurs thoughtfully, turning the Orb over in his hands.
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The oh hey here's how Orbs of Sorcery can be made is a big deal. I'm guessing the Jades have seen AV but haven't used it for anything based off Paranoth's comments.

Boney said:
"A less portable, but potentially no less fascinating a result, is to take advantage of how easy it is to apply compressive force to it despite it being very incompressible, and use this to very carefully slit open the realitymost layer of the Liminal Barrier. Once the Vitae has burrowed in to the Barrier, its disintegration into nascent Winds reveals another fascinating property: just as reality imposes the Winds onto the energies of the Aethyr, so, it seems, do the Winds impose reality onto the void between. In this manner, Aethyric Vitae can be used to create and expand liminal realms."

There's a thoughtful silence as that is processed. "You're claiming to have solved two of the foundational mysteries of the Colleges of Magic," Feldmann observes, beginning to flip through the pages of the book that had been hiding underneath the Orb.
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The Liminal Realm bit was her basically going oh hey I solved this second mystery. Feldmann even commented damn that's two mysteries.

Boney said:
"Is this idea laundering, Algard?" Dragomas asks.

"Today is the first I'm hearing about any of it," Algard replies, turning from his Orb to coolly return Dragomas' scrutinizing look. After a moment, Dragomas nods in acceptance. But despite Algard's vouching for you, you're quite confident there's going to be an intimate encounter with a Daemon-checking orb in your immediate future.
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Dragomas is like Algrad buddy are you trolling me? Also yeah Mathilde is going to get so many Daemon checks.

Boney said:
"There's a question to be asked about how sure we are that all of this is entirely non-Daemonic in nature," Reicthard says, "but may I take it from how I'm the first one to raise it that it's an answered one?"

It seems to you that Feldmann and Paranoth were too busy watching each other for a reaction to react to the question themselves. After a moment's silence, it's Mira that speaks up. "For seemingly unrelated reasons, the matter has come under quiet but thorough investigation in the past, and it has survived that scrutiny unscathed." Algard nods in silent corroboration.
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Understandable concerns from Reicthard. Gold and Jades have Apparitions stuff and the Light College likely check to make sure it's above board.

Boney said:
With their concerns quieted, you've stripped away the outermost layers of responsible leader and reduced these eight very powerful individuals to the magic-obsessed academics that they truly are in the quiet parts of their souls. Each of them is now completely occupied with exploring their Winds under conditions that are normally always needed elsewhere, or flipping through your book on the subject of Aethyric Vitae, than they are with continuing the actual meeting, giving you a moment to think. The normal flow of this sort of thing would next go to... well, not framed as something quite as crass as a reward, but more along the lines of an academic grant. What material assistance could the Colleges give to continue the sort of investigations that gave rise to this advancement in understanding?
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Man seeing them go from leaders to nerd was great. The Orbs of Sorcery are in constant use so the ability to test magic out with them near is insanely valuable. Learning about AV is something they're understandably very interested in because it has a lot of potential given what Mathilde has been able to do with it so far.

Boney said:
But make no mistake, this is absolutely a reward. You could ask for something as practical or as selfish as you like, either something of moderate value from each of the Colleges or for something really significant from them collectively.
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No way Mathilde wouldn't get reward for this.

Boney said:
- I've been trying to work out what the orb reward is going to be for way too long, so I'm passing the problem to you. There will be a twenty-four hour moratorium. Voting will be in plan format when voting for one thing from each College. Have fun.
- Favours can be banked for later, but I'd rather that only be for a portion of this. Saving it for later very often becomes never actually using it.
- Value for individual College favours are around the level of an enchanted item or a new tower on your penthouse or a magical secret equivalent to the Apparition knowledge you got from the Golds. Value for one big reward from everyone can be reasonably bonkers.
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I'm thinking about possibly opening the doors to knowledge. All the Colleges have secret lore and stuff they hide from outsiders, going hey add that shit to my Library and let me learn it would be awesome. Also it would take care of Mathilde's magical learning for a long time.

Though if that's to broad asking for useful bits and pieces would be good. Like the knowledge of the soul the colleges have, knowledge of the old ones, personal training from Algrad, stuff like that.

Silver719 said:
Okay, so, this is the kinda boon I think should follow Mathilde into the next chapter of her life. So, I feel it's not imprudent to ask, what should that chapter look like?

Do we want to do diplomacy between nations? Religious pursuits with Best Dad Friend Ranald? Do we want to hardcore study some BS, and ask for a facility to study Aetheryic Vitae and other stuff? Are we gonna mount an expedition? Establish a dedicated intercollegiate Watchdog organization, beyond what the Greys already do?

Of note: There's a lot of elf shenanigans that have been backlogging, from the very clear interest of the Dark Elf Witches to the standing invitations to Ulthuan. If there was anywhere we might look to pursue a deeper understanding of Ulgu, to the point of deliberately infesting Mathilde's soul with the stuff in the same vein as elemental dragons, it'd be there.

So, what do we (Mathilde) want? Immortality? Ultimate power? A really nice plate of cheese pastries?

Whatever it is, now's probably the best time for a first step towards making it happen.
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Personally I want Mathilde to continue developing the Old One Language reconstruction, study of other magic traditions and Wind Ascension.

The Phoenixian said:
Looking over the conversation with Seilph, I can't help but wonder if he was testing Mathilde during that.

Given the sheer depth of windsight the scene opens with, and old stories of Volans reading minds, I have to wonder if he was trying to get a read on just how much Mathilde knew about necromancy throughout the thing.

It certainly reads like a series of probing questions, until Mathilde satisfies his curiosity.

EDIT: Also, hunh, that feels very, very like a version of the Second Secret at the end. Dhar forcibly unraveled in a cascading failure, just using a spreading fire of Qhaysh to do it, instead of the instability of Dhar alone.
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Cold reading through Windsight is something we've seen done before, Mathilde is really good at it for example, Seilph doing it wouldn't be to surprising.
 
Panoramia is still being blocked from attempting for magister due to internal Jade politics right? It may be very unsubtle and rude but very tempted to use the reward to get all the other orders to pressure Jade into cutting down on the factionalism and let her take the advancement tests.
 
[] Rainbow throng for second Silver Roads war
[] Rainbow throng for Skaven hellwars

Still not sure if that might not blow back on our dwarf rep if some fool miscasts on battlefield with dwarves but... You know. Collegiate marching to war would be cool. First is soon-ish, second is god knows when.
 
I think an air ship is a good idea because it's something we can keep and build upon, we can take it to the southlands and look for Zorn, we can take it for Albion to talk to the druids and gain their lore alongside Tocher, we can fly the thing into battle and support campaigns. Given the investment of the Orbs I do not think a one and done boon is the best fit.
 
pucflek said:
Didn't the golds mount their weird ass chain of turning you to liquid on something very much like a steamtank? Or am I misremembering.
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steam engine isn't lostech but all the shit that goes into a steamtank is hard to replicate or reproduce

so the best we can get if we want a land vehicle with an engine is a Landship which is literally a wooden ship with a steam engine to drive the wheel

so who here is mad enough to ask for a Arknight scale landship for us to land our heli on :V
 
Eldon said:
Panoramia is still being blocked from attempting for magister due to internal Jade politics right? It may be very unsubtle and rude but very tempted to use the reward to get all the other orders to pressure Jade into cutting down on the factionalism and let her take the advancement tests.
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No, she took the exams and was promoted some turns ago, and was saddled with the Apprentice with control issues for her sins achievements.
 
My personal fantasy of ripping off a layer of cloth to reveal the entire set in front of a gaping audience didn't occur, Mathilde sure went for a deliberately casual understated approach, but hey it isn't everyday the greatest wizards in the Empire collectively boggle at your accomplishments. Hoping to feel more of the ripples in subsequent turns as the wider College scene reacts to the Book and the Orbs. We go to our next Waystones meeting and all the Empire are staring at us and the others are confused.

Not sure if anyone knows the time-frame of the investigations, but holy shit if Algard processes that this motherfucker has been sitting on Aethyric Vitae for almost two decades on top of everything else she has done. Because I've been iffy about that previously, even if it's perfectly kosher in this particular academic culture, I wonder if a continual stream of papers being widely released so others could play with it would've been better in other ways.

As for rewards, I'd need to see one helluva Collective Prize to consider voting for it, because a lot of what I've seen don't hold much interest. Like a skyship seems like a total waste that doesn't provide anything I want at all when we already have a Home that I love, we have a sick gyrocarriage and hired a wizard buddy to pilot it. What do you get for the girl who has everything?
 
MiracleGrow said:
Like I need to stress this, topping on gear can be done pretty easily with the normal favor system. Not many chances for a single BIG project!
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I mean, I'm not even sure how some of the various Winds would be used on, say, a Giant Airship. We could probably figure out something, but realistically that doesn't need all eight, and using one of the ones that's not great for that to secure personal protective gear seems valid to me.
 
A lot of time we use boons and rewards for the greater good, so using this boon for something big and dumb and personal would nice.

Is there anything cool any of the colleges could add to our wizard towers?
 
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